Letter: Reason to hope

In 2013, extreme weather events like Typhoon Hayain were a reminder that global warming is happening now. But thanks to people who took action across the country, it was also a year full of progress in the effort to cut the carbon pollution that’s fueling the climate crisis.

From state-level action, such as New Hampshire’s reauthorization of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to the president’s climate plan at the federal level, there was much to celebrate. And for the first time in history, America’s economy is growing while emissions are shrinking. But we’ve still got the biggest challenges ahead of us – including ballooning opposition from dirty energy industries that will stop at nothing to block common-sense health and environmental safeguards. President Obama’s plan to limit carbon pollution from power plants will test the resolve of our leaders. Will our elected leaders push for the strongest possible limits? Only time will tell, but if next year is anything like the last, we’ve got reason to hope.

"In 2013, extreme weather events like Typhoon Hayain were a reminder that global warming is happening now."......Pray tell, what do the extreme weather events of 2014 here in the states remind us of???

GWTW wrote:

01/02/2014

2013 set records for the least amount of extreme weather events. In the next few days in NH, however, I'm hoping I don't freeze to death, which can easily happen in -15F.

GWTW wrote:

01/01/2014

One terrible typhoon in 2013...proof of global warming...thousands of cold records set in 2013......silence. What's in the forcast for NH?? -25F??? Question...will heating your home cause the death of thousands in the next typhoon?? Who is willing not to heat it???

tillie wrote:

01/02/2014

You really got to get out of your bubble and maybe watch some channel that gives out more than just political hogwash. The rest of the world has seen extreme storms all over Europe and Asia. England and western Europe has been hit extremely hard this year, and yes the ice is melting and raising sea levels. The US has had horrific amount of tornados out of season. Wake up, we don't live alone on this planet. You people have no belief in science, vaccines, evolution. It is crazy, you will have the US back in the Dark Ages if this keeps up.

RabbitNH wrote:

01/02/2014

How about some stats to back up your claims that extreme storms have happened all over the world Tillie? Are you aware that certain places have typhoon, tornado, hurricane seasons, and how many of those storms have occurred over the years?
I lived in Japan and they had their typhoon seasons, like the US with their hurricane seasons. Some seasons have more storms each year and some years fewer storms. There are stats that document if those storms are decreasing or more frequent. That tells the story.

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/03/2014

Year to year variability in weather and weather events 'proves' or disproves little if anything. You have to look at long term trends. Is the insurance industry concerned about climate change? Is our defense establishment concerned? They both have to exist in the real world, not the one climate deniers seem to inhabit. "The events shown above are examples of four types of extreme weather that scientists say are becoming more frequent and intense because of climate change: extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and heavy precipitation. Individual events cannot be blamed on any single cause. However, the long-term trends in these types of events demonstrate that extreme weather risk is rising as a result of climate change. Each new event is an opportunity to better understand our vulnerabilities and ways to cope with these rising risks. Examined together, these events also can help us evaluate the benefits of actions and policies aimed at reducing the emissions of heat-trapping gases that are warming the planet and 'juicing up the weather'”.
http://www.c2es.org/science-impacts/maps/extreme-weather
"Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company, has compiled global disaster for 1980-2010. In its analysis, 2010 had the second-largest (after 2007) number of recorded natural disasters and the fifth-greatest economic losses.4 Although there were far more deaths from geological disasters—almost entirely from the Haiti earthquake—more than 90 percent of all disasters and 65 percent of associated economic damages were weather and climate related (i.e. high winds, flooding, heavy snowfall, heat waves, droughts, wildfires). In all, 874 weather and climate-related disasters resulted in 68,000 deaths and $99 billion in damages worldwide in 2010. The fact that 2010 was one of the warmest years on record as well as one of the most disastrous, begs the question: Is global warming causing more extreme weather? The short and simple answer is yes, at least for heat waves and heavy precipitation.5 But much of the public discussion of this relationship obscures the link behind a misplaced focus on causation of individual weather events. The questions we ask of science are critical: When we ask whether climate change “caused” a particular event, we pose a fundamentally unanswerable question (see Box 1). This fallacy assures that we will often fail to draw connections between individual weather events and climate change, leading us to disregard the real risks of more extreme weather due to global warming."
http://www.c2es.org/publications/extreme-weather-and-climate-change
Here's the IPCC report on extreme weather:
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf

GWTW wrote:

01/03/2014

Today I learned that wildfires are considered 'weather'... not only weather...but 'extreme'....

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/03/2014

Congratulations. You must be so proud. But you could have learned it on your own. From Wikipedia: "Severe weather refers to any dangerous meteorological phenomena with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life.[1] Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atmospheric conditions. High winds, hail, excessive precipitation, and wildfires are forms and effects of severe weather, as are thunderstorms, downbursts, lightning, tornadoes, waterspouts, tropical cyclones, and extratropical cyclones. Regional and seasonal severe weather phenomena include blizzards, snowstorms, ice storms, and duststorms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_weather

GWTW wrote:

01/02/2014

Hogwash...tornado activity at an all time low

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

01/02/2014

tillies 100% easily provable FALSE statement -1) "A new report published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation concludes that there has been no increase in extreme weather events in recent decades." 2) "‘Least extreme U.S. weather year ever?’ 2013 shatters the record for fewest U.S. tornadoes — 15% lower than previous record — 2013 also had the fewest U.S. forest fires since 1984, The number of 100 degree daysthe lowest in 100 years of records’, We are currently in the longest period (8 years) since the Civil War Era without a major hurricane strike in the US " http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/12/27/2013-shatters-the-record-for-fewest-tornadoes-15-lower-than-previous-record/

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/02/2014

Your two denier posts are misleading and in need of qualification.Your claim that 2013 "set records for the least amount of extreme weather events" failed to mention that this claim referred only to the continental U.S. Second, expanding one's definition of 'extreme' to include heat and drought, and rainfall and floods, muddies the picture considerably as to "least extreme". It's standard procedure for deniers to latch onto results of a single year and then make sweeping claims that "such and such" is not happening, if we experience a bitter cold snap, or a prolonged period of mild storm-free weather . Changes taking place don't necessarily happen in a linear fashion--even though we're adding CO2 in that way. Temperatures don't necessarily increase year by year at a steady rate. Nor do storms increase in number or intensity at a steady rate. Trends emerge over time--deniers are making hay with their "no warming in 17 years" claim that relies on cherry-picking 1997 as the start date. But use a longer time-line, and decade-long averages, and the upward trend in surface temperatures is clear. And it's just one of a number of upward trending patterns being seen in the climate data--most of which the deniers ignore since they have no answer or explanation beyond denial or allegations of conspiracy and corruption. The denier blogs are intentionally misleading because they don't delve below the surface, they're content to blare their headlines with cherry-picked news that, only at first blush seem to run counter to the findings of the science. But dig deeper, for the reason we're currrently experiencing such cold weather, for instance, and the denier claims can be seen as the falsehoods they are. Or don't, and accept the the words of those paid to deny reality, and who rely on a credulous audience to accept and disseminate their lies because they confirm what they think they already know. Which may not be very much. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/18/2013-extreme-weather-events
http://www.c2es.org/science-impacts/extreme-weather/drought

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

01/02/2014

BRUCES EXCUSES page 2. again easy to refute....NOAA’s State of the Climate In 2008 report found that: The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) trends for intervals of 15 yr or less, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate. YOUR OWN ILK set 15 years as the span necessary for statistical significance. QUOTE: even the New York Times has at last been constrained to admit what Dr. Pachauri of the IPCC was constrained to admit some months ago. There has been no global warming statistically distinguishable from zero for getting on for two decades.”

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/02/2014

Here's a graph of the Hadley CRU data, over about a 30 year interval, and over several shorter intervals. The shorter intervals show a shallower slope--one that may not be statistically significant as a trend, but one that deniers like to use for just that reason--they then can claim a 'pause'. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:360/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1999/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to:2013/trend

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/02/2014

As for the NYTimes 'admission', that wasn't the Times, it was an opinion piece in the Times from a climate change denier. And as I've corrected before, the journalist in question refused to release a transcript of his interview with Pachauri, who said his words were taken out of context by the journalist and his Australian paper.

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/01/2014

Once more, the poster below demonstrates that he is a "low information voter" --or more accurately a low information poster, proving that the category is not limited to Democrats, as he seems to believe. Here, he accepts at face value the claims from a 3rd-rate U.K. newspaper, while disparaging and dismissing the findings of climate science. Rather than research the issue, he takes as gospel any information, however far-fetched, that confirms his preconceptions and prejudices; in other words that denies the factual basis for the warming planet. The claim that there has been no warming for 17 years is false, and relies on cherry-picked data points to have a plausible basis. 1997 was the year of the strongest El Nino event on record, and resulted in record warm surface temperatures for the time. Choosing this as the start date can make it seem, depending on which temperature record one uses, that the rate of warming has slowed--but not paused. 2005 was slightly warmer, while a 12 month period between 2009 and 2010 is currently the warmest on record. And it's important to note that 15 or 17 years is not enough time to distinguish a genuine trend in climate science. But look at a graph that shows average surface temps decade by decade, and the continuing upward trend is clear and dramatic--there is no 'pause', there is no 'cooling'. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/12/the-global-temperature-jigsaw/#more-16547
As for extreme weather events, no single event, like Typhoon Haidan, can be blamed on global warming. But trends are emerging, strong enough that insurance companies are already adjusting their exposure to liabilities in the face of future climate-change fueled events. Insurance companies have to live in the real world, unlike climate change deniers. There is ample evidence already that warming is causing more extreme weather events-- heavier rainfall and more flooding, and more extremes of heat and drought. See here: http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/files/10-ans-dextremes-climatiques.pdf
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Provisional-Statement-on-Status-of-Climate-in-2013_WMO.html

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

01/02/2014

Bruces EXCUSES - like the whack a mole game: Bruce is there with a daily excuse for everything. Last week he said the oceans ate the globull warming. That was his daily excuse then for why no globull warming in 17 years 4 months

Bruce_Currie wrote:

01/02/2014

I think the whack-a-mole analogy fits your misleading posts to a "t". A little misinformation on your part goes a long way--recall the old saw about lies traveling halfway around the world while the truth gets its boots on. The oceans are taking up extra heat- warming has increased at deeper levels. At the same time, a new study out that includes more surface temperature data from the Arctic--thanks to some clever statistical work-- and which data is largely missing from the Hadley CRU data cherry-picked by deniers to show 'no warming' or a 'pause'--shows increased warming over the last decade in keeping with trends from previous decades.

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

12/31/2013

Not a single reputable person would link the Typhoon to Globull warming. The CLIMATE CRISIS gig is up - there has been ZERO globull warming for 17 years 4 months. There is ZERO link between carbon and extreme weather. For the Readers this HEADLINE: The climate alarmists have lost the debate: it´s time we stopped indulging their poisonous fantasy..... http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100238550/the-climate-alarmists-have-lost-the-debate-its-time-we-stopped-indulging-their-poisonous-fantasy/